


Brussels, 1815

by isabellahazard (cafemusain)



Category: The London Life (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: F/M, Historically-accurate medical procedure, Military Violence, Napoleonic Wars, Waterloo, by that i mean it's all shit my dude
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 13:09:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7533964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafemusain/pseuds/isabellahazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bee and Robbie deal with Waterloo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

“I cannot fathom why we must continue in this fashion--balls and parties as if we were not staring down the barrel of a French musket.” Isabella Fitzgerald was dressing her own hair tonight, as she had done this whole season. Their income was limited, and her dowry was for life after the war; the expense of a maid in a military setting (even one so singular as this) seemed frivolous, and her upbringing had left an indelible stain of practicality. “I thought to follow the drum, Robbie, not the dance-cards.”

“Your wordplay improves.” The Robbie in question was leaning against the door to their bedroom, all shirtsleeves and smiles.

“As well it should do, with you spouting off Old Billy every time we are alone.” Her look softened and she turned to him, letting the curl she had been placing fall against her shoulder. “I alliterate without even thinking. I might even understand some of it by the time we’ve been married ten years.” There was no room in Bee’s imaginings for a future that did not include him, and though her concern was very real, as the daughter of a military man, she had no effort to spare for premature weeping. There was very little Bee had not managed to bring about, if only she willed it hard enough.

Her upturned face seemed to prove too much temptation, as her toilette was promptly interrupted by a kiss. This was warmly-received until Robbie realized he’d got a measure of long blonde hair in his mouth, and took to sputtering, much to his wife’s amusement. “Just deserts. If you’d have continued in that vein we’d never have made it,” she chided, pinning the rest of her hair away with a deft hand, a dab of pomade taming the cloud of front curls.

“Is that where mine went?” Robbie asked with a chuckle, spying the tin as she replaced the lid. 

“I distinctly recall you making some vow along the lines of endowing me with your worldly goods,” she returned easily, “and everyone selling is charging through the nose. I shouldn’t think you would want any body mistaking your wife for the golden fleece, now the battles are largely in Brussels's ballrooms.”

“Alliterating again,” he accused without turning, shrugging his braces into place. They had been a wedding-present, hand-embroidered with all of the flowers from Ophelia’s mad scene, and Bee vowed it was the only time she would read it--but she smiled at the memory, moving to tighten them and pressing a kiss to the back of his neck in the process. By the time he turned, she was stepping into her dress, which he made to help fasten; this odd ambulatory marriage had turned him into quite the expert.

His hands, capable though they might be, never made it to the fastenings, as he had apparently decided to return her previous favour. With a muffled laugh against his mouth, she allowed several minutes to be very pleasantly passed this way, until she forgot to hold up her dress, which hit the floor in an airy _whump_. “We are going to be _late_ , Lieutenant-Colonel,” she said seriously, resting her forehead against his before gathering up the dress, stepping back and turning so he could finish his appointed task. “I will be far more amenable to such distractions when I have seen you in your coat.”

“Which rather defeats the purpose, I should think,” he groused, but went to put on his jacket cheerfully enough once he had finished with her dress. She returned to the dressing-table for her gloves and jewelry, donned efficiently now that she lacked distraction. “Is that one new?” At the expressed confusion as to what was meant to be new, he clarified, “your dress.”

The dress was ivory, embroidered heavily enough with silver not to look inappropriate for a married woman; she was especially proud of the handmade tassels at the shoulders. If the Empress Josephine could wear white and be fashionable--though they poor English ladies were not meant to admit it--Bee Fitzgerald certainly could. “Oh! No, this one is from ‘11; Jules did not want it, so I spangled it out of boredom, and any other color would clash, you know. We cannot _clash_ in front of Wells.”

“Wells, is it! Awfully familiar.”

“He nodded quite intimately when we were introduced; we are the best of friends.” Bee’s introduction to the Duke of Wellington had gone markedly better than her presentation to the Queen, which was well, as she had taken it far more seriously. Seeing her husband, though, she smiled and went to adjust his pelisse and brush invisible dust off his epaulettes with an appreciative expression. “I look much better in gold, you know. You might have picked a regiment with gold frogging.”

“Quite right--I ought to have taken your colouring into appearance, when choosing my profession. At the age of seventeen.”

“Terribly inconsiderate,” she agreed, but smiled, and spread her hands on his chest and kissed him. “You look very handsome.”

“You always did lose your head over a man in a red coat.”

“Slander! You don’t even wear red, and colour me shocked when you told me--blue is by far the proper colour for a uniform. I wouldn’t have married you if you had worn red, and anyhow now is when you’re supposed to thank me for the compliment, and inform me that I am a vision of beauty, the perfect companion, &c.”

“I suppose y’won’t embarrass me,” he granted, eyes twinkling, and she resented that it made him handsomer.

“Very amusing--fix your hair,” she sniped, ruffling it on purpose despite her silk gloves.

“If only someone hadn’t stolen my pomade--”

“Wretch! I’ll divorce you on grounds of cruelty, you know. My father is very important. Friends in Parliament.” Mindless teasing accompanied him to the dressing-table, where his hair was put in some semblance of order; they had both mercifully been blessed with curls, and did not have to bother with much arrangement. Not, of course, that either was of the temperament to slave at curling-papers, and they were regrettably the sort of effortlessly attractive people others would resent, if they were not so pleasant.

In the end they were late, of course, but it mattered little. That Colonel and Mrs Fitzgerald were late to the Duchess of Richmond's ball was hardly to be the most remarkable event of that evening.


	2. II

Despite the night’s pleasant beginning, Bee was unsettled. Her smiles were cheery enough, her greetings for friends and acquaintances lacking any hint at her distress, but there was a weight in the pit of her stomach that wasn’t right. Despite her origins, Bee was not prone to superstition, but her gut clamored over her practical insistence--something was wrong.

Oh, it was all glitteringly beautiful, the dashing officers and beautiful women dancing and conversing in a whirl of regimental colors and bright silks. She had even coaxed her husband into a waltz, his leg largely healed but she unwilling to risk its soundness on a sprightlier dance, and the rest of her time had been occupied by other friends. Wellington himself had arrived in time for supper, and Bee had managed not to glare at the Prince of Orange (whom she did not know, but disliked on principle of the Princess Charlotte’s distaste for him) even once, not having caught sight of him all night. None of it had helped.

The noise of the crowd had gradually become grating, the music an irritant, even friendly acquaintances an unspeakable bother. That she disliked being so fretful only made her pricklier, and the rippling, unworldly gaiety of the evening rankled at the back of her mind. Several officers of her acquaintance had left without making any mention of their departure, and rumors seemed to pass just out of her hearing. ‘ _The French--_ ’ ‘ _\--marching to-morrow--_ ’ ‘ _\--near the border_.’

No, none of it had helped, and her husband noticed. “Is something wrong?” She did like it when he furrowed his brow (it made his dashing eyebrows crinkle amusingly), but found it had little effect on her tonight.

“Only I feel a little strange--I thought I might return to our rooms.” While not strictly true, it seemed a more reasonable excuse. The prospect of movement after this strange, wet spring of inaction, ought by rights to have cheered her, or at least relieved her; her mother had always faced her father’s departure with unflappable faith and serenity.

Her false illness was, it seemed, cause enough for great concern, as he placed a steadying hand at the small of her back, brushing her hair out of her face with the other. “Take some supper--you always feel better after supper.” Somehow unwilling to leave him without a companion, she nodded, tucking her gloved hand into his elbow, aligning her side with his. That she was several inches taller than he was did not seem to prevent her from drawing comfort from the gesture. When they were called to supper, she held on longer than necessary, and she was unsure of the frisson of emotion that passed through her as they met one another’s gazes from other people’s arms.

At supper, her conversation remained genial enough, as she was unwilling to share her displeasure with the officers between whom she was seated. There was no need to play spectre at the feast, and they were not of her close acquaintance. The man to her right, a young coxcomb of a badly-moustachioed hussar, had bought his commission only recently; it was a practice Bee felt she might never understand. It was fine and well when a man like Robbie found position in the Army, but that England’s safety, that _Europe’s_ safety, should depend on any who had the money to buy the privilege of commanding those who defended it… she put it to the back of her mind, laughing hollowly at his frivolous jokes, wishing for his confidence. It was the sort of vague foreboding that her old nurse, Bess, might have called sea-sense--and that her mother, Susanna, would have quickly called nonsense and self-indulgent fancies.

She had just resolved to cheer up when she saw the Duke of Wellington stand, say something to his nearest neighbors, lean to whisper to the Duke of Richmond, and retire. Something was very wrong indeed. Her restive manner invited no further conversation, and she even heard the man on her left, a richly-dressed officer of the heavy cavalry whose name might be Holt and whose rank had escaped her entirely, mention to the lady on his other side that he was ‘befogged entirely,’ for ‘Mrs Fitzgerald had been mentioned to him to be a very jolly sort of person.’ She did not touch what remained of supper, her only thought to reach her husband as soon as was socially acceptable.

By the time supper was ended and the crowd had spilled out of the dining-room to reassemble in their parties, that something was afoot could no longer be doubted. She had seen a girl in pink muslin sink at the feet of a young officer, weeping and clinging to his legs. Other expressions of distress, less overt, took place all around her as, to her complete astonishment, the band began to play, and couples assembled to dance.

At last she had a clear view: Robbie was across the room, and Bee wasted no time or courtesy in reaching him, line of dancers be damned. There was no opportunity to ask; he told her as soon as she took his hands.

“The French have crossed the border. I report at three--we march South.”

She took a moment before responding. The Robbie Fitzgerald she had met was merry and clever and sly, burning brightly though he had been confined by injury; the one she had married was quick and brave and kind and intelligent. Before her… before her was a soldier, grave and quiet as she had never seen him. “Our rooms are close enough. You cannot report in your evening-wear, and we cannot say good-bye in a ball-room.” She would not part with him among weeping girls and stoic officers and grave, knowing matrons. One more moment alone.

It occurred to her as they returned that she had been, in some ways, raised to this life, raised to watch a husband march away to war. Without her father’s wild stroke of good fortune, she would in all likelihood have married a sailor, might already have said goodbye and borne her first child at home among her female relatives, presented the baby to its returning father months later. She had spent a lifetime watching wives wait to become widows, watching her father depart and her mother pack his sea-chest with quiet courage and grace.

She did not feel courageous, or graceful: she felt a bone-deep fear settle into her as she clutched his hand quietly. Little was said until they had reached their little suite of rooms, where she removed her gloves and laid out his uniform while he shucked off his formal pelisse and jacket, draped over a chair where she would likely have to put them away later, after he had gone.

For all she had wished to be alone, it seemed now she didn’t know what to say--for perhaps the first time in her life, tongue-tied entirely.

When he had changed his trousers, he reached for a plain pair of braces, and she stepped across the room to stay his hand. “Wear the others,” she urged gently, and fetched them from where he’d laid them across the cushion.

“I wouldn’t want to--”

“It’ll make me feel better,” she said, biting her lip to stay prickling, threatening tears. He obliged, and she fiddled with them as she had done earlier that night, running her thumb along the varied greens. “Well damn me, none of them seem very merry,” she said, with a weak smile. “Morbid, really, all that remembrance and sorrow. Perhaps you ought to have worn the others; stupid wedding-gift--”

“Superstitious bunch, you Cornish,” he interrupted, turning and putting a hand to her face, keeping her from entangling herself in her own spilling words. His answering smile only made the tears come, and she quite aggressively stifled a sob, hands withdrawn to rub furiously at her eyes. In her efforts she hardly noticed he had guided her to the bed and sat beside her, taking her hand in his own and kissing the heel with his eyes shut.

The gesture undid her entirely, and they spent a few minutes side by side as she dissolved, saying nothing, her hand held against his nose and mouth; her stifled cries wrenched through gritted teeth into one of his handkerchiefs she had pilfered, hidden down her bodice. It was a miserable tableau, dreadfully still though emotion raged within both. They were neither of them made for stillness or silence, and it hung like smoke in the air of the humid little bedroom.

“I thought I would be stronger,” she said finally, eyes red but no longer watering, and he leaned to kiss her brow, his own hands trembling. “But the braces--it’s stupid, really. I’ve never been superstitious. My mother never was.” She felt all of seven, small and powerless in the face of an enemy that had threatened every man in her life, for as long as she could remember. It wasn't _fair_ , and she felt foolish even thinking it.

“You wanted to protect me,” he said quietly, and she nodded, but the word prompted her memory, and she stood, much to his confusion, to begin rummaging in her trunk. The occasional sniff escaped, but action had ever been her cure for distress, and when she returned to his side she held a small pile of worn leather in her hands.

She looked up, meeting his gaze, hands tightening around the strange little item. “My father gave it to me after we were married--said it was mine to give, now, even if you weren’t a sailor.” With halting movements, she placed a strange sort of a scapular around his neck, a pouch at the bottom of an old leather thong, which came to rest below his breastbone. “It’s only meant to keep you from drowning, but--” Her hope that he protection could be transferred was obvious. “Better than flowers from a drowned woman, at any rate.”

He kissed her quite soundly, and she clung back fiercely, wondering if, had there been more time, they might have had to dress him all over again. She pulled back to fetch back his neckcloth, his coat; he stood and allowed her to squire him with her gentle hands and look of tender concern, heart pounding fiercely in her chest. When he was at last in full array, she patted the place where the caul hung beneath his clothes, and he caught her hand and her eyes. She only nodded, the urge to weep quelled for the time being. “I won’t waste breath telling you not to go. I wouldn’t want you to listen.”

Their goodbyes--the words--were quiet and perfunctory. No promises were made that could not be kept, and no desperate entreaties or pleas uttered. She kissed him fiercely before watching him vanish into the dark streets, and returned to pack away his things and try to sleep.

If she cried bitterly in the following hours, held his pillow, begrudged England her husband's service, even prayed in earnest, selfish desperation that he would be one of the ones to come back, he didn’t need to know, and nor did any body else. She would carry that fear close to her heart, packed away now she had faced it down, and make what use of herself she could in the coming days.

England needed her--needed them both--and she had been raised to answer that call.


	3. III

The cannon-fire sounded like the fiercest part of a summer gale, rattling the windows even as far as Brussels. Quatre Bras had been a skirmish compared to today--Waterloo, if reports were correct. Bee paid it no mind, hurrying through the streets of the half-fled city in a borrowed dress and apron, hair tied up in one of Robbie’s old neckcloths, stained beyond recognition as white linen. Action was the only cure for her worry, and if she was working herself so hard that she fell into bed each night insensate, so be it. Her destination was one of the fine townhomes that, just a week previous, had held billeted officers, elegant social engagements, well-dressed women.  
   
It now resembled a charnel-house, rather than a gracious residence, and it would only get worse.  
   
Friday had been torture, but as she watched the wounded straggle in on Saturday, she had immediately gone to find a surgeon. Surely a steady pair of hands and a strong stomach wouldn’t go amiss, and they hadn’t. Today would be no different, tomorrow yet worse, and she found the prospect a sort of daunting comfort. If she kept busy, the time until she knew would go faster.  
   
How they had made their way from Quatre Bras to Brussels she had no idea, whether by waggon or on foot, as their arrival was haphazard, this establishment hardly official. Many of the wounded, she had heard, were being taken to the large squares, and she wondered as she walked if her efforts would be better spent there.  
   
Upon arrival she nodded to one of the other impromptu nurses, the solid, Spanish wife of a sergeant in the 28th. “Going home?” The woman, Juana, nodded, untying a bloodstained apron.  
   
“I’ll need some sleep for tomorrow. With luck, there should not be too many new arrivals today.” They neither of them had had any news, and Bee squeezed the woman’s shoulder. “ _Que Dios tenga piedad_.” She made the sign of the cross and headed home the way Bee had come.  
   
They were by no means the only women who had volunteered their help; many of the ladies who had not fled to Antwerp had the grit to offer aid. Many disliked blood, and so helped in gentler ways--ways for which Bee could not spare her efforts. If she took final dictations, wiping brows and patting rough hands and weeping for boys and men alike, she would have nothing left.  
   
The surgeon in charge of their makeshift hospital had given her more grueling work. There had been a day for infection to set in, and surely she would be holding men down as their limbs were removed for their own protection, gone forever. Others would be holding hands as the men themselves went the way of all flesh, calling out feverishly for lovers or mothers never to be seen again.  
   
She did not see Robbie in their anguished faces. She tried her best not to think of Robbie at all.  
   
It was a long, arduous day, which was exactly what she had wanted. In the impersonality of it, she found solace, knowing her work was necessary without engaging her heart; that organ must be protected, its strength saved for what might be to come. The surgeon, a Mr Milbury, sent her home after sunset, insisting they would need her early tomorrow. Juana would take over her duties in a little while. She went home, took a little supper, washed the blood from her apron, and went immediately into an exhausted, dreamless sleep, no matter the distant roll of cannon.  
   
Whatever it was that woke her in the wee hours, she would never be certain. The cannon had stopped, and she went quickly to the hospital, whereupon learning Mr Milbury was claiming a precious few hours of sleep, she informed Juana she would be going to the square. Juana made some sign of blessing, clutching at a rosary in her pocket. “Be safe, _Señora_.” Bee smiled just a little, her first in days. “And you, Juana.”  
   
It was worse by far than their makeshift efforts. Men lay on straw, crying out beside those insensate, many dead or near it. The smell of powder had long since permeated the city, and here it mixed with the thick smell of blood, and even she reached for a handkerchief to clutch to her mouth. Her effort was for naught; she emptied her stomach into an obliging gutter, and prayed it would not wash to some poor man’s deathbed. Immediately she turned and went for her rooms--there would be Robbie’s old canteen for water, and linens from which to rip bandages. On impulse she took a flask of strong grain alcohol, a gift from an Irish sergeant who had brewed it himself, and made her way back, tying yet another of Robbie’s neckcloths around her mouth and nose as a mask against the smell.  
   
There was a sort of rhythm to it: a splash of water, a nip of spirits, clean and tie off whatever could be bandaged. Refill the canteen when it was empty. Leave those too grievously wounded to those who might help them or, failing that, the embrace of their Maker; more than one priest wandered the square, crowlike in their black robes. She had at least a few words of brisk comfort to offer the men, regardless of their origin--the first thing she noticed was that all the wounded were being brought here, French, Prussian, Belgian, English alike. Years raised hating the French, and here were boys younger than she, clutching her hand and begging for _Maman_. Those she left for other women with a heavy heart, little able to soothe.  
   
No use was to be found in listening to the rumors swirling about the outcome, and none at all in comparing the number of French wounded to Allied. Many of the more grievously-wounded would still be close to the field, the system of transport notoriously unreliable. It was a small mercy she had seen nobody of her acquaintance--of course, officers would have better treatment than most. She sought no news of her husband, with things still so unsettled; as a child her family had once spent two months in full mourning, believing her father dead at sea. It would be the ruin of her to hear he was dead, and worse yet to hear he was alive and have it not be true.  
   
At one point someone insisted the French were taking the city, causing no small amount of panic, but Bee remained unperturbed in her task. She was tending to the French as much as any body else, spoke the language with reasonable facility, and had very little worry as to her fate, being well-able to defend herself and the wife of a ranking officer besides. In the end it was only French _prisoners_ , several of whom could use her attention before being tossed in whatever unpleasant place she assumed they would be left to await the end of the war--hopefully sooner, rather than later.  
   
It was from one of the escorting officers that she learned the battle at Waterloo was won, quite decisively, but could get no more information as she had begun berating him until he let her attend to some of his more desperate cases. The prisoners, though soundly beaten, were much more willing to talk once she had given them a sip of something and patched their wounds; in prison, even a scratch could fester, and they welcomed clean dressings and a kind word or two.  
   
It was won. Napoleon was retreating, with the Prussians in hot pursuit, and she took a moment for a prayer of thanks--one for the souls of the dead, too, both hers and theirs. But for birth, any of these boys could have been any one of the English she had helped, and though she was disinclined to consider the nature of war at the present time, a sadness unrelated to her personal concerns settled into the fibers of her heart, the first thing she had let in since that terrible ball.

So it continued, that day and the next, until she no longer knew when she had last bathed, and her borrowed homespun would likely be stained forever. It buoyed her spirits to see women both local and English--even some French camp-followers--help in what ways they could, despite Brussels having become a city of the dead and dying. Rumors of the list of wounded and dead flew, and she ignored them, forgetting all but her duty to those who had sacrificed for their country, whatever country that was. The dreadful bandaging on Monday had taken its toll on her spirits, and she had run out of linen besides, and she spent a somewhat hysterical night thinking that Robbie would wonder where his shirts had gone. If she saw the list, the spell was broken--his fate would be _fait accompli_ , his survival no longer something she could will true.  
   
He would come back.  
   
Her mother had spoken of knowing Edmund Rosdew wasn’t dead, though she’d mourned publicly when the Navy had sent their condolences, distressed only that they should have to subsist on a widow’s pension until he returned. Her belief had never wavered, ‘she would know if he had died.’  
   
Bee felt no such mystical connection, but she did have simple, bullheaded faith that he would not fail her.  
   
So she lost herself in her self-imposed duties, grabbing sleep when and where she could, eating only when reminded, in a fugue of fetching water, wiping brows, changing bandages, monitoring fevers in the desperate lack of qualified surgeons. When Juana's lodgings were seconded, she came to stay in the suite of rooms Bee had barely seen since this all began, and she found she was glad for the company. Unlike Bee, Juana was actively seeking her husband, Sergeant Frank Kirkbride, and brought him to stay once she found him lacking an arm (but otherwise quite boisterous) in a field hospital. Bee put them up in the front room, and soundly rejected all prospect of rent.  
   
At last the stream of arrivals had slowed, replaced with the departure of coffins, but more happily those able to depart under their own power. She still had fevers and wounds and men to attend to, but the chaos had, by some miracle of military order and feminine will, been tamed.  
   
And though finally, finally she opened her ears for news, she had none.  
   
It was at the end of a grueling day--three amputees lost and one now blood-poisoned, soon to follow--that Mr Milburn told her she and Juana need not return the next day. “The worth of your service was beyond expression,” he assured them, “but there is order, now. Go home and make some sense of all this. I wish you luck and joy.”  
   
It was sunset, and as Juana went to tend to Frank’s wounds, Bee wiped her forehead of sweat and opened the windows for a breeze, as she smell of the bandage changing made her unusually queasy. There was an elegant wrought-iron railing upon which she leant, face in her hand, watching the city from three floors up. Worry came unbidden into the pit of her stomach and she chewed her lip, unsure how she would proceed without a task to do. She had seen so many woman walk off to search the fields, only to return to Brussels incoherent with grief; many had paced the square and the hospitals in desperation. She knew a few had run mad.  
   
Bee had never once considered what might happen if she did not return. There were no children, and she would have nothing of him but his name, perhaps mementos, and she had a sudden, terrible vision of herself as a war widow, suffering nobly back among her family and clutching at his old coat.  
   
Though, it seems, she needn’t have bothered.  
   
“You make a rather poor Juliet, my love,” she heard, looking down to the cobbled street in confusion at the familiar voice. Once she made sense of the figure below, half-obscured in the dying light, she gasped, hand to her mouth, then let out an incoherent cry of shock, unable to process, and paused only cry out again.  
   
Juana came to her side. “Is something wrong--”  
   
“ _Robbie!_ ” Bee cried, tears coming unchecked as she pointed and laughed in disbelief, and Juana stared.  
   
“Well? What are you waiting for, the second coming? Go to him!” After quite a firm slap on the rump Bee gathered her skirts and rushed down the stairs, barreling directly into him and nearly knocking him to the cobblestones in her haste to have her arms around him. He only laughed in her ear, and more tears came at the sound. Once she had assured herself he was real, she pressed teary, wet kisses to every part of his face, hands on either cheek, and drew away to see him frowning, nose wrinkled.  
   
“ _Thou womb of death--_ you’re more charnel-house than heroine.”  
   
She drew back, stared at him with her face red and streaked with tears, apron yet soaked with blood, and frowned right back.  
   
“ _That’s_ what you have to say to me? The greatest land battle of this whole miserable war and you’re complaining that I smell-- no, not only that, you’re quoting _Shakespeare_ at me again-- I’ve half a mind to do Napoleon’s work for him and kill you mys-” It was perhaps the only time she was ever glad to be silenced with a kiss, as Robbie had quite firmly pressed his mouth to hers. He hauled her up against him despite her height, causing her to squeal and laugh against his mouth, and he smiled in return as he let her slide back to earth. She drew back to look at him, snorting. “You’re hardly a vision yourself--what happened to your poor _coat_?”  
   
“Grazed by a bullet--I’ll have a very dashing scar on my arm, now.”  
   
At that she kissed him again, that he had come within inches, literal inches, of being shot. “I’ll fight you for the bath,” she told him seriously when finally she drew back, unsure she would ever have her fill of him. “I’ve been tending the wounded.”  
   
“So I see… and smell. I’ve had my fill of fighting for the next few days, I think; you are welcome to it,” he said, smile soft and tired, and led her upstairs, hands joined. Introductions were made, circumstances explained, and Bee was certain that the meager meal of bread and cheese (and some sort of cured meat Juana had brought from Spain, the smell of which unsettled Bee’s stomach) was the happiest and best she ever ate.  
   
There were memorials to be attended, the dead to mourn, black crepe to order for the endless march of funerals. He had his own burdens, both the losses on the field of battle and his military responsibilities, and they would both make their way into France with the rest of the army in due course--but tonight, damp from a tepid bath and across a table from near-strangers, they reveled in the miracle that they had all come through it in, Frank excepted, one piece.  
   
It was enough--more than enough.  
  
_Romeo and Juliet_ was banned from the Fitzgerald house forever after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks! A hamfisted pregnancy reveal would have been distracting, but the clues are there if you look.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Sharpie for use of Robbie!! This has been up on the RP site for a long time without my posting it, so here it is for posterity.


End file.
